The sixth-year center is averaging career-highs in points (15.2), rebounds (10.1), assists (1.8) and steals (1.6) this season while he has helped the Thunder to the second-best defense in the NBA.

Part of what makes the Thunder so successful on defense is they have been able to force turnovers at a high clip. They lead the NBA by a wide margin in steals per game with 11.4 per game while the Grizzlies, in second place, are averaging 9.8 steals per game.

For the Thunder, they have three players ranked inside the top 20 in steals—Paul George (2.5), Russell Westbrook (2.1) and Adams (1.6). So, it shouldn’t be surprising to see that the team leads the NBA in points off of turnovers with 22.9 points per game.

And with Adams on the court, the Thunder have flourished.

The Thunder are outscoring opponents by 12.6 points per 100 possessions with Adams on the court, but with Adams off of the court, they are being outscored by nearly 10 points per 100 possessions.

For most of his career, Adams has been touted as a player that does the dirty work on the court. These are sort of plays that don’t show up on a traditional box score but the NBA recently created hustle stats with things like box-outs, screen assists, deflections and loose-balls recovered being tracked.

The NBA created these stats for a player specifically like Adams to illustrate the type of impact these players have on a game. For instance, Adams currently leads the NBA in box-outs with 11.3 per game, a category in which he has consistently dominated (even before it was officially tracked).

Adams has also helped create for his teammates, too.

He is eighth in the NBA with 4.4 screen assists per game, which are screens for a teammate that directly lead to a made basket by that specific player. In terms of traditional assists, his 1.8 per game are a career-high and he has dropped some gems this season.

For fans this season, it has been perhaps his passing that has really drawn attention. He has dished out some highlight-reel passes that have made basketball purists stop and watch some of his passes just 14 games this season.

But, what has been perhaps the most encouraging sign for the Thunder is players are looking to make the extra pass this season. Head coach Billy Donovan has long preached ball movement and the team has certainly done that this season.

In the past, the Thunder have relied on isolation plays with Westbrook and others, and while Westbrook can catch fire at times, there are other times in which he struggled to shoot. The Thunder appear to have moved away from that this season for the most part and have been fun to watch with more passes.

Another area in which Adams is playing well this season is in pick-and-roll situations.

With the team acquiring Dennis Schroder this season, many have wondered how his chemistry would be with his new teammates and, so far, there have been minimal hiccups for Schroder transitioning to the team and that has been the case especially with Adams.

The transition for Schroder has been seamless. Just five days into training camp, Schroder even commented to reporters that he already felt like he had strong chemistry with Adams and with the way the two have started this season, that chemistry is getting even stronger.

“His ability just to read the different screens, and not just read them but set up his man,” Adams said of Schroder during training camp. “It’s a big difference that I notice in guards that know how to use pick-and-rolls. He knows how to use that. And his tempo off that, his pace off that, is very clean.”

The duo has been dominating opponents this season and it has been a welcomed sign for the Thunder. With Westbrook having missed seven games already this season, Schroder has given the team perhaps their best option at the backup position in quite some time.

Adams has been among the league leaders in offensive rebounding during the past few seasons. Last season, Adams finished second in the NBA in offensive rebounding with 5.1 per game and he was just 15 total offensive boards from tying league leader Andre Drummond.

And this season, it has been no different.

Adams is averaging 10.1 rebounds per game this season with 4.7 coming on the offensive end of the floor and he ranks second in the NBA once again behind Drummond.

As a result of his offensive rebounding prowess, the Thunder have consistently ranked near the top of the league in second-chance points as they lead the NBA this season with 17.6 second-chance points per game with Adams a huge reason why.

Although it is a small sample size of just 14 games this season, Adams is overall playing the best basketball of his career and he has been a huge reason why the Thunder have been successful after a slow start.

In typical fashion, though, Adams doesn’t get nearly as much credit as he probably should for some of the things he does on the court, but if you ask him, he probably would prefer it that way.

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Cody Taylor

Cody Taylor is the Editor and Lead Writer for OKC Thunder Wire based out of Orlando, Florida. He previously spent five years covering the NBA for Basketball Insiders and HoopsWorld. In addition, he has also covered college sports at UCF, including baseball, football and basketball.